Speaker 1: I've had this happen to me before, and it's been
Speaker 1: really difficult when I've been in a scene or a
Speaker 1: production with someone who's like, I'm ready, I'm there. I
Speaker 1: got there, man.
Speaker 2: I thought about my dead dog, and now I'm ready
Speaker 2: to cry roll the cameras.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm David Desmalchin and I am an actor.
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everybody, Thank you for joining me for another
Speaker 3: episode of Off the Beat. This is your host, Brian Baumgartner.
Speaker 3: Today we have a very spooky guest, a little insane
Speaker 3: lurking in the shadows, or at least that's the type
Speaker 3: of character he often plays. The great actor and well,
Speaker 3: let's call him the King of Darkness. David Deastmulchin is
Speaker 3: with us today. You might know him from such blockbusters
Speaker 3: as The Dark Knight, Ant Man, The Suicide Squad, or
Speaker 3: even Oppenheimer. Or maybe you've seen the films he wrote
Speaker 3: and starred in, Animals and All Creatures here below, Or
Speaker 3: if you're into comic books, David is also the author
Speaker 3: of the series Count Crawley Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter. Or
Speaker 3: if you've been casket shopping lately, you might know him
Speaker 3: from his partnership with titan caskets, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: He is a multi hyphen it in the industry, and
Speaker 3: he does it all very very well. I might add,
Speaker 3: we're going to talk about how he got all those
Speaker 3: hyphens in the first place, how he overcame addiction and
Speaker 3: ended up a movie star. His latest film, Late Night
Speaker 3: with the Devil. I cannot wait to see it. Let's
Speaker 3: get the conversation going. Here is the immensely talented David Destmulchin.
Speaker 4: Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna Bubble
Speaker 4: and Squeaker cook it every month. Lift over from the
Speaker 4: night Boat.
Speaker 3: What's up, David?
Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 1: So nice to meet you, see you on this weird place.
Speaker 1: But I was just I was just with somebody who
Speaker 1: I believe you know. I could be wrong, but I
Speaker 1: feel like you're friendly with if you're not friends with
Speaker 1: Steve Age. Oh, you guys know each other. I think
Speaker 1: you guys know one another. We did somewhere in the
Speaker 1: comedy world.
Speaker 3: Yes way.
Speaker 1: It was his birthday today and I threw him a
Speaker 1: little birthday brunch. His birthday was on Sunday, but I
Speaker 1: threw my birthday brunch and I rushed back because I
Speaker 1: was excited to get to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that is uh, that's so nice. Happy birthday
Speaker 3: to Steve.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Steve Ag. Everybody, shout out.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the legend, the master Steve Agent.
Speaker 1: Weeks after his birthday, we're gonna be giving him a
Speaker 1: shout out. I don't even know when this is gonna air,
Speaker 1: but that's okay.
Speaker 3: Well, several weeks ago it was Steve AG's birthday. Everybody
Speaker 3: which begs, of course, the question, where was my invite?
Speaker 3: I mean, was it fun?
Speaker 1: It was very fun. It was Blue Jam Cafe and Tarzana,
Speaker 1: which serves really delicious French toast. If anybody's a fan
Speaker 1: of French toast, you go to Blue Jam Cafe and Tarzana,
Speaker 1: and you never know, you may stumble upon the birthday
Speaker 1: party for Steve Ag and his cluster of middle aged
Speaker 1: dude friends who sit around and yuck it up and
Speaker 1: probably overstay. Are welcome.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Blue Jam Cafe, I know it very well.
Speaker 3: There's one there in West Hollywood, Hollywood, there on on
Speaker 3: Melrose or something. Here's the thing about the French toast,
Speaker 3: or at least if you have a friendly or semi
Speaker 3: famous face. You debate whether to order the French toast,
Speaker 3: you choose not to, and then they'll bring it to
Speaker 3: you anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, because I ordered oatmeal and you know what
Speaker 1: they brought me?
Speaker 3: What oatmeal?
Speaker 1: I got? Screwed? Man, I don't have a friendly face. Though,
Speaker 1: this is like the creepy, scary character actor face. I
Speaker 1: guess that probably nobody's thinking, well, let's show him a
Speaker 1: kind gesture, that poor man looks like he could use
Speaker 1: a nice slice of our famous French toast. No, they're
Speaker 1: probably like, get him his oatmeal, get him out of here,
Speaker 1: get him out or some amount of people. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: makes people uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Well, we're certainly going to talk about that. I mean, well, actually,
Speaker 3: before we get into it, I was thinking about this
Speaker 3: knowing that I was going to talk about you on
Speaker 3: our past. We have never met before, but I've been
Speaker 3: a fan of your work for a long time. So
Speaker 3: we're both character actors. Yes, but very very different in
Speaker 3: a way. And not that I don't do creepy, but
Speaker 3: maybe I do more, you know, in the drama world,
Speaker 3: maybe I do more scary or like, I don't know
Speaker 3: what it is, like I mean like.
Speaker 1: He You've got this wonderful range, and I'm always so
Speaker 1: impressed by artists who can play different instruments really well,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like you can play dry, deadpan, sweet, vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, I've seen you be totally the opposite
Speaker 1: of Obviously, there's the things that you're known for. If
Speaker 1: you will, I think the sand goes for me where
Speaker 1: people like, oh, I know you from and it's always
Speaker 1: kind of the same things. But I do in the
Speaker 1: dream of being the kind of artists that or actor
Speaker 1: or whatever we want to call ourselves that can live
Speaker 1: in space, and it's it seems like you feel the
Speaker 1: same way, since you're comfortable describing yourself as such. I
Speaker 1: think that being a character actor, although maybe we don't
Speaker 1: get as many zero's at the end of our checks,
Speaker 1: we tend to get a lot of freedom and flexibility
Speaker 1: in the sense that we get the opportunity to stretch
Speaker 1: in ways that sometimes different types of journeys go for actors.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a real gift.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a real gift. You're right, And honestly,
Speaker 3: the only reason I brought this up I was searching
Speaker 3: for compliments. But aside from that, there's an edge that
Speaker 3: I admire in you, and I'm not talking physically, but
Speaker 3: there's a sharpness and angularity maybe that I think is
Speaker 3: maybe more subversive than me, and maybe part of it
Speaker 3: is physically as well. But it's interesting to me because
Speaker 3: while we would sort of on the surface both describe
Speaker 3: ourselves as character actors, I think we use that term
Speaker 3: so often and so loosely that it's it's almost reductive
Speaker 3: in a way.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense, Yeah, it is, but I prefer it.
Speaker 1: I think people go They'll say things to me like, oh,
Speaker 1: when are you going to get a leading role or
Speaker 1: something like that, and I kind of think I've never
Speaker 1: felt like I'm not getting awesome roles. I've always been like,
Speaker 1: if I think about the movies I've been in where
Speaker 1: I have played minor supporting or a supporting or a
Speaker 1: major supporting role, who has been whatever he's been meant
Speaker 1: to be in the purpose of serving the story and
Speaker 1: the protagonist and the director's vision. If I look at
Speaker 1: the film as a whole, I can't imagine. I can't
Speaker 1: look at a film and be like, Oh, I should
Speaker 1: have been there's there. I was meant to play Bob
Speaker 1: till I look at a movie like The Dark Knight,
Speaker 1: and I don't think to myself like I wish I
Speaker 1: would have been the Batman or the Joker. No, I
Speaker 1: think like that role just seemed like it was just
Speaker 1: so suited for what my skills and joy. People often
Speaker 1: ask me like, oh, You've made such great choices in
Speaker 1: your career, and I wish that I could take more
Speaker 1: credit than the Roulette wheel of being an actor. I
Speaker 1: wish that I was some savante artist living in my cabin,
Speaker 1: cobbling shoes and getting to go no, no, no, no, oh,
Speaker 1: yes that one. Oh that. It's just not my reality.
Speaker 1: I'm a working actor who reads work. I'm just so
Speaker 1: I think dedicated maybe to the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: I consume as a watcher, reader, listener that maybe energetically
Speaker 1: in some woiy way, it's maybe like made me do
Speaker 1: better auditions or have stronger energetic connections to material that
Speaker 1: is in the genre space is a little more in
Speaker 1: the dark shadows whatever. But the times I've said no
Speaker 1: to things genuinely, and there's been stuff that I have
Speaker 1: absolutely done because it wasn't my favorite script or role,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I'm working, I need to work
Speaker 1: and I know I can make something useful and help
Speaker 1: this story. The times when I have said no was
Speaker 1: either because there was no money, and that happens often
Speaker 1: where people go, we've got this great project and we
Speaker 1: just can't pay you, and I go, I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: have to support a family. And when I'm going to
Speaker 1: do no money work, it's always my own stuff because
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to make my own little things. So
Speaker 1: I try to block out three or four months a
Speaker 1: year of no money work, and that's always my own stuff.
Speaker 1: But the other reason is only when I genuinely try
Speaker 1: to connect with the material and I feel like I
Speaker 1: can't find my way into it, and I won't do
Speaker 1: it because I genuinely believe you can see it, you
Speaker 1: can feel it in a performance. If you don't connect
Speaker 1: with in any way, shape or form, or you're just
Speaker 1: like I would be doing a great disservice to somebody
Speaker 1: who's paying me or someone who's trying to direct me.
Speaker 1: If my internal monologue is I don't connect with this
Speaker 1: at all, I feel like that would be really hard.
Speaker 1: So aside from that, though, I'm kind of a yes man,
Speaker 1: and luckily that's just snowballed into getting to work with
Speaker 1: really cool people and cool projects, and being open to
Speaker 1: making myself. I think you do this as well, and
Speaker 1: it's another badge of honor in being a character actor.
Speaker 1: The vulnerability of playing the fool, to me is a
Speaker 1: really powerful experience as an actor. I really think getting
Speaker 1: over my fear and my ego and being willing to
Speaker 1: just stand still and be If anyone knows much about
Speaker 1: history of storytelling, theater, comaedia, dell art, whatever, that very
Speaker 1: important function of the fool, and it's not as simple
Speaker 1: or pejorative as it may sound in saying that word
Speaker 1: to your viewers or listeners, but it's like it's actually
Speaker 1: kind of a beautiful place to exist in storytelling. It's
Speaker 1: like I want to strip down myself of all ego.
Speaker 1: I want to just stand there and experience things and
Speaker 1: let the camera capture those feelings of vulnerability. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky that it just it works. Whether it's
Speaker 1: in comedy or drama or horror, it's a place I
Speaker 1: like to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know you grew well. You were born in Pennsylvania, Allentown. Yes,
Speaker 3: you ended up growing up in Kansas City. By the
Speaker 3: way I read, you played football are you a football fan.
Speaker 1: I am a football fan. I've had a very good
Speaker 1: year this year as a Kansas City Fanglas. Thank you
Speaker 1: you're a Cisco fan.
Speaker 3: I'm no, God, oh god, no, no, no, I was
Speaker 3: rooting for you in that game. Let's just say I
Speaker 3: might have had some a financial interest, not a rooting interest,
Speaker 3: but a financial interest in Kansas City. But no, congratulations.
Speaker 3: I mean, you've got those fancy new headphones now. I'm
Speaker 3: glad to see that we won those for you. That's nice.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the team's efforts in making sure that your
Speaker 1: pockets were padded. I honestly don't watch football regularly. I'm
Speaker 1: not a diehard fan. I'm a bit of a fair
Speaker 1: weather fan. I left the field my senior year of
Speaker 1: high school after our last game, a painful loss to
Speaker 1: Shawnee Mission North in which we should have won the game,
Speaker 1: but a couple of really major errors on our team
Speaker 1: part dropped the last literally in the last two minutes
Speaker 1: of the game. We you know, listen, I sound like
Speaker 1: Uncle Rico right now, but I genuinely like I like.
Speaker 1: I walked off the field and football was to me
Speaker 1: a means to an end. I loved playing it at
Speaker 1: the time. I loved my team and my coach and
Speaker 1: the experience of going out on the gridiron and playing
Speaker 1: football and giving it all I had. But my heart
Speaker 1: was definitely I was yearning to be like making haunted
Speaker 1: houses and being in the theater. And I was always
Speaker 1: a little I was building sets for the theater, like
Speaker 1: they were doing a production of Dracula, and I was
Speaker 1: like helping build sets, but I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the play. I wanted to be, you know, doing that.
Speaker 1: And I had good grades, but not good enough to
Speaker 1: get academic scholarships. But I was good enough at football
Speaker 1: that it was going to help me get to go
Speaker 1: to college. So it was something I really dedicated myself to.
Speaker 1: And then when I walked off the field the end
Speaker 1: of my senior year, I assumed the next summer I
Speaker 1: would be in training at one of the colleges that
Speaker 1: was recruiting me to play football. And I was preparing
Speaker 1: to go do the next six months of continuing to
Speaker 1: get bigger and bigger, and then I was encouraged by
Speaker 1: a couple of teachers to audition for this theater training
Speaker 1: program in Chicago, and I did, and I got a scholarship.
Speaker 1: I completely did a one eighty, and I said, that's
Speaker 1: that's what I want to do. That's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: And so that's De Paul right, Yes.
Speaker 1: De Paul Theater School.
Speaker 3: So this is a legitimate program here to Paul, I remember,
Speaker 3: to Paul, I mean, I don't know how old we
Speaker 3: are where we're well, I actually I do know how
Speaker 3: old you.
Speaker 1: Are, with forty eight.
Speaker 3: No, I know we're close to the same age, so
Speaker 3: I know De Paul was good. So you're telling me
Speaker 3: you didn't have any experience at that point.
Speaker 1: No formal training. I had done some community theater in
Speaker 1: high school. I had an amazing speech coach in high school.
Speaker 1: I had an awesome drama teacher that we had like
Speaker 1: a repertory theater company at my high school. But I
Speaker 1: had no formal It's funny. When I went to my audition,
Speaker 1: I'm in cut off Jean shorts, a Janis Joplin tied
Speaker 1: it T shirt Chuck Taylor's. I've totally screwed up because
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that they didn't want us to do
Speaker 1: dialect monologues. And I had prepared a monologue from a
Speaker 1: play by Peter Shaffer called Equis and I was kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with that play in high school. And I
Speaker 1: and I also had done a monologue from Eric Bagosian's
Speaker 1: talk radio where I played a bunch of different characters,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want any of that shit. So I
Speaker 1: show up. Here's all these kids in dance belts with
Speaker 1: jazz shoes on and coming from you know, all these
Speaker 1: training ground places. They just everybody was like, I was
Speaker 1: so intimidated. I was so out of my depth. But
Speaker 1: I had something that I'll always be grateful for that
Speaker 1: Maybe if I had overtrained as a kid and teenager,
Speaker 1: maybe if I had been so ingrained in thinking, I
Speaker 1: had an approach that I knew what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Because I believed that I had no clue what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I was like raw dull. I just was
Speaker 1: like open to and I had this willingness to just
Speaker 1: jump into whatever and kind of make a fool of myself.
Speaker 1: And then I do this monologue completely wrong. And the
Speaker 1: guy running the audition was the dean of the school
Speaker 1: at the time. He's like, no, no, no, what else
Speaker 1: do you got? And in my back pocket, I had
Speaker 1: been reading this play called does a Tiger wear a necktie.
Speaker 1: And I had just started to like kind of on
Speaker 1: my own, do this monologue. And I did it, and
Speaker 1: then I get a letter, you know, two months later
Speaker 1: that's like you get into the school. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that's great, but there's no way I'm going. At that time,
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was sixteen seventeen thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: and here I've got an opportunity to go to either
Speaker 1: Iowa or California, or to go back east and get
Speaker 1: like a full ride, you know, to get an English
Speaker 1: degree and play football at one of these other colleges.
Speaker 1: And then this letter comes that says you've or were
Speaker 1: happy to inform you that you've been awarded this this scholarship.
Speaker 1: And I I'll never forget that moment, man, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget opening that letter and seeing that and knowing my
Speaker 1: life was about to change. Now I was going. I
Speaker 1: was going to go to Chicago. I was going to
Speaker 1: go the path of so many of my heroes, you know,
Speaker 1: John Malkovich in this up in Wolf Theater Company and
Speaker 1: the Goodman Theater, and and it happened. It's wild, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm so low, it's awesome.
Speaker 5: I'm so lucky.
Speaker 3: What did De Paul give you? I mean I talk
Speaker 3: about you know, I started in the theater as well,
Speaker 3: and I you know, there was there was a time
Speaker 3: for me where I considered it just something to do
Speaker 3: or more an activity, and then there was a moment
Speaker 3: where my eyes were opened to like the possibility in
Speaker 3: terms of process, in terms of study, in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, just everything that went into what ended up
Speaker 3: being the thing that I love, which is character creation, physical,
Speaker 3: you know, vocal movement, all of those things. Was there
Speaker 3: a moment for you did that happen at to Paul
Speaker 3: where you were like, oh, oh, I see now and
Speaker 3: this is awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, what was wonderful about the curriculum? At the time
Speaker 1: that I went to De Paul it had been kind
Speaker 1: of inherited from the Goodman's School of Drama, and it
Speaker 1: was this old school steeped in Russian theater, in Polish
Speaker 1: lab theater, body work theater, very intensive, very almost monastic
Speaker 1: kind of the way you would you know, you approached
Speaker 1: to the work was your body, your voice, and then
Speaker 1: technique didn't come until you had been there already like
Speaker 1: two years. And it was a really intense environment where
Speaker 1: they would cut maybe a quarter of the students every year.
Speaker 1: I think I just had that openness and willingness because
Speaker 1: I knew nothing, but I knew that I had this
Speaker 1: like attraction to the words, getting the words out of
Speaker 1: my mouth, finding a way to inhabit the body and manufacture.
Speaker 1: In the beginning of the journey, I thought it was
Speaker 1: about finding the way to tap into having the real
Speaker 1: physical and emotional and verbal responses and reactions that I
Speaker 1: would have in the given circumstances. And so we began
Speaker 1: training doing strictly improvisation. It was all Spolen work and
Speaker 1: Dell Close work and all of this really important stuff,
Speaker 1: learning about being present, being in the moment, being a responder,
Speaker 1: to seeing partners, into material and to given circumstances and environment. Oh,
Speaker 1: there was so much emphasis put on how your environment
Speaker 1: affects your body, and just all this work to keep
Speaker 1: you in the space of your imagination so that you
Speaker 1: can pretend to have these experiences, so you can manufacture
Speaker 1: these emotional states of being. And what was really cool
Speaker 1: about it, each of the different teachers you had would
Speaker 1: come from a different school of thought, so you'd have
Speaker 1: somebody with what felt very methody, and somebody you know,
Speaker 1: there was you name it, Stanislavsky on down every book
Speaker 1: that every teacher seemed to have their day. But what
Speaker 1: started to click and crack through for me that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until much later was the very pragmatic tools
Speaker 1: that I could utilize to manufacture and imagine these states
Speaker 1: of being and then to replicate them. At this point,
Speaker 1: it was strictly theater training, So the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to replicate them on a nightly basis while still
Speaker 1: feeling present and still feeling like you're able to respond
Speaker 1: to any changes that may occur, but finding the tools
Speaker 1: so that I could, if I'm playing Vince in Bury Child,
Speaker 1: scream my guts out for twenty minutes a night, and
Speaker 1: come back and do it the next night and have
Speaker 1: all of my faculties with me. And at that point
Speaker 1: I was still in the place of like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go there. If I'm in mourning, I'm going to
Speaker 1: lay here and think about all the people who've died,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to build myself up. But what was
Speaker 1: being laid, the groundwork that was being laid underneath that
Speaker 1: approach was a much more technical style and approach of acting.
Speaker 1: And this is just for context, something that I think
Speaker 1: is important to know. During those years when I was
Speaker 1: at school, I had a lot of addressed mental health issues.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of untreated struggles that manifested in
Speaker 1: a pretty debilitating opiate addiction. So by the time I
Speaker 1: left this incredible school with all these incredible tools and knowledge,
Speaker 1: I didn't think I was ever going to act again
Speaker 1: because I just was so lost in the sea of
Speaker 1: my addiction that I swam out in a way from
Speaker 1: kind of society for a number of years, nearly died
Speaker 1: a number of times. Eventually came had a miracle of
Speaker 1: consciousness where I came to the belief and decision that
Speaker 1: I needed help and that I was wanted to live.
Speaker 1: You know, I was like, I was like Frank Cross,
Speaker 1: Bill Murray and Scrooge when he's in his coughin casket
Speaker 1: getting pushed into the to the crematorium and he's like,
Speaker 1: I want to live. I want to live. And it
Speaker 1: was like a miracle. All of a sudden, I was
Speaker 1: alive again. But it took me about five years to
Speaker 1: get back on stage once I got clean, because I
Speaker 1: was so scared that I wouldn't be any good if
Speaker 1: I didn't have the benefit of getting sedatives after work,
Speaker 1: and I was also afraid that going there emotionally every
Speaker 1: night was going to trigger me to relapse. And instead
Speaker 1: what happened was I did I got back on stage,
Speaker 1: and I found that my acting was much better than
Speaker 1: it had ever been before because of all the work
Speaker 1: I had been doing and the sobriety. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: I had this incredible breakthrough where so let's say, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the very first things I did when
Speaker 1: I got back on stage was I played both in
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde solom and he's a soldier who's so obsessed
Speaker 1: with Solome and when she refutes his advances, he kills
Speaker 1: himself on stage. And I am a person who has
Speaker 1: struggled with suicide attempts and suicidal ideation. So I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I just have to go there didn't work, and the
Speaker 1: performance when I was trying that in rehearsal and the
Speaker 1: director was so wonderful, was like it was not I
Speaker 1: wasn't working, And instead I started to go back into
Speaker 1: all these tools that I'd learned that I didn't even
Speaker 1: realize I'd learned about manufacturing something really beautiful with my face,
Speaker 1: my voice, my eyes, my body, my presence, my energy,
Speaker 1: but manufacturing in a way that was much more skilled,
Speaker 1: like like a guitarist who has notes he is hitting
Speaker 1: and is manipulating the little muscles to get those notes
Speaker 1: because it's not real. It's like what I'm doing in
Speaker 1: that theater wasn't real. It was a little bigger than real,
Speaker 1: and it was a little to the left of this,
Speaker 1: and it was to fit in the world of Wild's
Speaker 1: language and the director's vision. It needed to be sculpted
Speaker 1: some other way. And it just started to click. Man,
Speaker 1: and I just started to go, oh wow. And that
Speaker 1: has been the journey now for my God, that's been
Speaker 1: you know, eighteen years, almost twenty years of this path,
Speaker 1: this journey for me, that has been the joy that
Speaker 1: I get out of being a technical actor. So many
Speaker 1: of those tools I learned in school. And you know
Speaker 1: what else I learned in school that I think is
Speaker 1: really important. And if anyone's an actor and watching this,
Speaker 1: it's like becoming comfortable with who I am energetically physically
Speaker 1: knowing who I am and knowing that there is a
Speaker 1: there is a probability that any role from Hamlet to Falstaff,
Speaker 1: from Willie Lohman to Biff Loman, depending on the vision
Speaker 1: of the production, if I bring my authentic David self.
Speaker 1: But I'm not trying to create the Dustin Hoffman version
Speaker 1: of Willy Loman or the Philip Seymour Hoffman version of
Speaker 1: Willy Lohman. I'm not trying to create the so and
Speaker 1: so version of this thing, the Marlon Brando version of whatever.
Speaker 1: That I can take my best shot at it, and
Speaker 1: if I don't get it, I don't get it. But
Speaker 1: it gave me this great freedom that anything felt possible
Speaker 1: and that I could embrace being who I am as
Speaker 1: a character actor. I honestly think DePaul is one of
Speaker 1: the best training grounds for character actors just because of
Speaker 1: that very thing, and in fact, actors like Michael Rooker,
Speaker 1: w Earl Brown, who else, Judy Greer, PJ byrne Ough,
Speaker 1: so many fantastic I'm forgetting tons. Carl Malden studied there
Speaker 1: back in the day. Like it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: character actor's dream school.
Speaker 3: You know, No, that's awesome. I mean, there's so much
Speaker 3: that you just said that I want to unpack. I
Speaker 3: respect so much and agree so much with what you're
Speaker 3: saying that you know, I get asked all the time about,
Speaker 3: you know what, was it difficult for you to go
Speaker 3: certain places? I think that the particularly in the theater,
Speaker 3: the physical and sort of mental stamina can be draining
Speaker 3: and difficult. But I think ultimately, if you're using those
Speaker 3: tools to create a character and not you know, self
Speaker 3: abusing yourself, you know that part of it for me
Speaker 3: is not as difficult to go certain places.
Speaker 1: I think too, we're part of an ensemble, right, We're
Speaker 1: part of a team of people who are trying to
Speaker 1: achieve something. Of course, we as actors are in front
Speaker 1: of the camera or we're at the front of the stage.
Speaker 1: But if my process can be as technically astute as
Speaker 1: I want it to be, whenever I achieve my nirvana
Speaker 1: as an actor, I could exist in a place that's
Speaker 1: almost like a monk, where like I could sit there
Speaker 1: so violently and be ready and you let's say you're
Speaker 1: directing me in a scene and you're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, David. We realized we didn't get the coverage
Speaker 1: on this thing. We need to go back to where
Speaker 1: we were five minutes ago. When you're saying to her,
Speaker 1: I think I'm leaving you now, and I need you
Speaker 1: to Can you do that? But can you make sure
Speaker 1: your face is kind of sorry? The lighting in this
Speaker 1: place is weird. Could you like, could you face that way?
Speaker 1: Because I want to make sure we get the light
Speaker 1: on you. And I just look at you and I
Speaker 1: go yes, and I go and I can do it.
Speaker 1: And then you go, oh my god, that was so great.
Speaker 1: Can we do it again? But this time we just
Speaker 1: had to pick up the pace a little bit because
Speaker 1: I needed yes, and I can pick up the pace
Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh god, that was a little too fast.
Speaker 1: Can you slow down a little bit next time? I go, yes,
Speaker 1: I can do it. That to me is the dream,
Speaker 1: not And I've had this happen to me before, and
Speaker 1: it's been really difficult when I've been in a scene
Speaker 1: or a production with someone who's like, I'm ready, I'm there.
Speaker 2: I got there, man, I thought about my dead dog
Speaker 2: and now I'm ready to cry roll the cameras and
Speaker 2: some poor gaffer it's just trying to do his job.
Speaker 2: I'm just getting yelled at because this actor is ready.
Speaker 1: That's my heart. But I know that some people's process.
Speaker 1: So when it is some people's process, I try to
Speaker 1: support them as a fellow actor, and I try to
Speaker 1: just give them what they need. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I could never probably be a director.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have the patience to be a director.
Speaker 1: I would just be like, well, Brian, I told you
Speaker 1: to sit in the chair in the terre a damn line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what you're saying is is great in the ideal.
Speaker 3: I think you're a much nicer person than I am.
Speaker 3: And I'll and I'll only say this, it's not about
Speaker 3: not being able to get back to that place. But
Speaker 3: I do think for me, it's about the five minutes
Speaker 3: later thing. We can do, however many we need to
Speaker 3: do in a row, but once my mind has moved
Speaker 3: on and we have to go, that's a little tough
Speaker 3: for me. It's hard. That's a little tough for me,
Speaker 3: you know. For me, the only time that I need
Speaker 3: to put myself somewhere like what you're talking about, I
Speaker 3: think you and I work exactly the same. And so
Speaker 3: partly why I'm asking this is to find out if
Speaker 3: you have that. One of the things that we talked
Speaker 3: about in school was about entrances, and we spent those
Speaker 3: tons of time with just a door right like we.
Speaker 1: Had an actual exercise where we're a door in the
Speaker 1: middle of the classroom and you would knock on the
Speaker 1: door and your improv partner had to open the door
Speaker 1: kind of based on what they thought the energy was
Speaker 1: that you were bringing into the room, based on the
Speaker 1: way that you knocked. Yes, entrances are everything.
Speaker 3: So you have this dark period, you make your way
Speaker 3: back out of it. You start using the theater and
Speaker 3: feel like you're better than ever. And it sounds like
Speaker 3: we're talking circa two thousand and six to two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight, And in two thousand and eight you get
Speaker 3: your first role in a major motion picture, maybe the
Speaker 3: biggest motion picture of the last twenty years. I'm referring,
Speaker 3: of course, to The Dark Knight from zero to Christopher
Speaker 3: Nolan in No Time Flat. That experience for you being
Speaker 3: on set with the late great Heath Ledger and Aaron
Speaker 3: Eckhart and Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, just to name a couple.
Speaker 3: What was that experience for you at that time in
Speaker 3: your career.
Speaker 1: So you know, I've been collecting comics my whole life.
Speaker 1: You can see my Longbock collection behind me. I have
Speaker 1: been always obsessed with the Batman, Detective comics and all
Speaker 1: forms and iterations of Batman stories, but the Joker was
Speaker 1: always my favorite characters. So here's this, you know, recovered
Speaker 1: addict who's now acting and doing mostly theater first audiences
Speaker 1: of one hundred sometimes twenty five people Storefront Theater, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, smaller regional theater is amazing theater. Some of
Speaker 1: the best theater in the world, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: in Chicago. And I was having these incredible experiences, but
Speaker 1: you know, I was not I was making a meager living.
Speaker 1: I was getting occasional commercial actually working with pretty incredible
Speaker 1: directors on like silly commercials. But you know, these these
Speaker 1: a tour doc filmmakers and indie filmmakers would be shooting
Speaker 1: commercials to make money. And all of a sudden, this
Speaker 1: lifelong dream of being in cinema and finding some way
Speaker 1: to merge my love of acting with my love of
Speaker 1: comic books and sci fi and genre, I get this
Speaker 1: insane opportunity to audition for the sequel to Batman Begins,
Speaker 1: which I had loved Batman Begins. So I was so excited,
Speaker 1: and I auditioned along with every other actor in Chicago
Speaker 1: for a very small there's a cluster of clowns at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie, pulling off of Michael manstyle heist,
Speaker 1: and that was the role I auditioned for. I got
Speaker 1: called back, got to read in front of Christopher Nolan,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite directors, one of the best directors
Speaker 1: of all time and definitely of our time, and then
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything from them for four months, so
Speaker 1: I did an entire run of Othello. I closed that show.
Speaker 3: It was July.
Speaker 1: That audition in April and July they called and said,
Speaker 1: do you have a passport? And I said sure, and
Speaker 1: I didn't because you're going to shoot a scene in
Speaker 1: the New Batman movie and they want you for this role,
Speaker 1: and you're going to shoot for this big parade sequence
Speaker 1: in downtown Chicago, and then in October they're going to
Speaker 1: pick up the scene where you're kidnapped and they're shooting
Speaker 1: it at this warehouse, but that's in London, so you're
Speaker 1: going to get to go to London and Jude. So
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, man, I'm standing in the midst
Speaker 1: of this surreal reality that is making me in the
Speaker 1: moment of having to be on set on camera with
Speaker 1: thousands of extras actors like Gary Oldman walking around, Christian Bale,
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger. I'm in the presence of greatness and i
Speaker 1: have to deliver really important energy into a sequence that
Speaker 1: is supposed to really terrify one of the main protagonists
Speaker 1: of the story. And I felt so out of my depth.
Speaker 1: I felt so terrified, and thank the power of great directors,
Speaker 1: somebody like Christopher Nolan, who could like give me some
Speaker 1: really simple direction, help set me at ease, told me
Speaker 1: a couple of jokes I think to loosen me up,
Speaker 1: and then really just encouraged me to follow my impulses.
Speaker 1: And we created that character in that moment. And I'm
Speaker 1: still floating. I'm still levitating fifteen years later on the
Speaker 1: exhilaration I got walking off of that set. Even though
Speaker 1: I was racked with insecurity and I was sure that
Speaker 1: I had done a terrible job, just the opportunity to
Speaker 1: have done that was like a drug like I'd never
Speaker 1: felt before.
Speaker 3: Well, the role may have been small, but was incredibly
Speaker 3: meaningful and memorable, and obviously it struck a note with
Speaker 3: Chris Nolan. He just had you back, of course for
Speaker 3: the new film, Oppenheimer. Was it fun? Did it feel
Speaker 3: like full circle for you coming back and getting to
Speaker 3: work with him again.
Speaker 1: It really did. He changed my life, you know. He
Speaker 1: putting me in the Dark Knight was something that had
Speaker 1: completely altered the course of my trajectory as an actor
Speaker 1: and as a person, and I always wanted the opportunity
Speaker 1: to really thank him and to express my gratitude, and
Speaker 1: never interacted after the Dark Knight. Once I ran into
Speaker 1: him in a park in Sherman Oaks where I was
Speaker 1: playing with my kid, and I did get to say
Speaker 1: thank you. I think I just verbally diarrhead a bunch
Speaker 1: of words at him, and he was like, oh, okay, Hi,
Speaker 1: but you know, you go you get a chance to
Speaker 1: play on a maestro's orchestra. There's a part of me
Speaker 1: that was always like, oh, I wish I could get
Speaker 1: another chance to play the triangle for him. And then
Speaker 1: when that call came in and they said, hey, there's
Speaker 1: a role that Chris wants you to play in his
Speaker 1: new film and would you come down to Universal you
Speaker 1: could read the script, and I flipped.
Speaker 3: I flipped.
Speaker 1: Being back on set with him. I'm still as nervous
Speaker 1: and insecure as ever, and he's still so wonderful at
Speaker 1: helping me feel present and makes me feel really safe,
Speaker 1: getting vulnerable and just being still and allowing discomfort to
Speaker 1: take over, which is really important for some of these
Speaker 1: moments that we had to capture. I had all these
Speaker 1: imagined perspectives of Killian Murphy, and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was going to be like. Was he going to
Speaker 1: be really weird and brooding? Was he going to be this?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: And he was just he was so lovely and I've
Speaker 1: been such a fan of him for so long, so
Speaker 1: to get to get in his space and get weird
Speaker 1: was really really lovely.
Speaker 3: I love it. Speaking of amazing directors, Prisoners, Blade Runner
Speaker 3: twenty forty nine, Dune Part one, and of course the
Speaker 3: new installment of the Dune films, tell me about working
Speaker 3: with Denise and your experience. The only actor I'm told
Speaker 3: who has worked with both he and Christopher Nolan multiple times.
Speaker 1: That's bonkers. That's just this weird old kid from Kansas
Speaker 1: has gotten to play with two of the greatest filmmakers
Speaker 1: of all time multiple times. Is bonkers to me. Denise
Speaker 1: is like a brother to me. He's so loving and
Speaker 1: he's so open, and he's such a like an oracle
Speaker 1: of creativity and imagination, and he's relentless. He is a
Speaker 1: relentless creator, and he's always trying to kick under the
Speaker 1: rocks and look around and find all the detail and
Speaker 1: all the magic and kilcondure anything that he can make
Speaker 1: happen by the way he puts people together and the
Speaker 1: way he creates a space that is so safe and encouraging. Again,
Speaker 1: I've had to do some really dark and twisted and
Speaker 1: weird things in his films, and I always feel like
Speaker 1: he just makes me feel so safe to go there,
Speaker 1: and I always land you in his arms and feel
Speaker 1: really really proud of the work that he's elevated out
Speaker 1: of me. I feel like I've learned so much as
Speaker 1: an actor from him, And again, it's very similar to
Speaker 1: what you learn from Nolan and all of these great directors.
Speaker 1: You've got to trust what's inside. You've got to trust
Speaker 1: that camera, got to trust your director. Got to stop
Speaker 1: trying to telegraph or tell the body anything with your
Speaker 1: body and voice. You've got to allow it to be
Speaker 1: sent with the most microwaved signals. And believe when I
Speaker 1: do that, with their encouragement, I always feel like I
Speaker 1: can give performances that I didn't know I was capable of.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe it has all led you to this Late
Speaker 3: Night with the Devil porting role Anymore, releasing March twenty second.
Speaker 3: How excited are you for the world to see this?
Speaker 1: I'm so excited and I really I hope you dig it. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I have never imagined myself getting the
Speaker 1: opportunity to play someone who is he's a comedian. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a late night talk show host. He's delivering comedic monologues.
Speaker 1: He has to be charming, and he has to be affable,
Speaker 1: and he has to be engaging and quick witted, and
Speaker 1: he's all these things that I never would think to
Speaker 1: define myself as in the kinds of roles that I've
Speaker 1: been able to play before, and so he was a
Speaker 1: bear of a role to take on. But it was
Speaker 1: an awesome challenge and I'm so proud of the movie.
Speaker 1: It's so scary and yet so fun at the same time,
Speaker 1: and it was really dramatic for me. It's about a
Speaker 1: guy who's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, who's
Speaker 1: lost his wife, who's drinking too much, who's about to
Speaker 1: get canceled. His show is literally on the chopping block
Speaker 1: because he's like fiftieth in the ratings and Carson's at
Speaker 1: number two at this point in nineteen seventy seven. So
Speaker 1: he just throws everything he possibly can at the screen
Speaker 1: one night, hoping to elicit shock, and instead really bends
Speaker 1: the boundaries of his own ethics and invites onto his
Speaker 1: show some stuff that he really shouldn't have. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. I'm so proud of it, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait for everybody to see it.
Speaker 3: Dude, I cannot wait to see it. I enjoy watching
Speaker 3: you in every single thing that you do, and that's
Speaker 3: a lot, by the way, ten projects IMDb says you
Speaker 3: were in just this last year. Here's my wish for
Speaker 3: you that well, that we get eleven this year. How
Speaker 3: about that. Let's not crush that number, let's just keep going.
Speaker 1: I wish that we get to play together sometime.
Speaker 3: I would after our conversation today, I want it even
Speaker 3: more than before. David. You have been so great, so
Speaker 3: generous with your time. Thank you so much, Thanks for
Speaker 3: coming on here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and let's do it again.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, David. It was so good talking to you, truly,
Speaker 3: my pleasure and great to meet you the other night
Speaker 3: before the Oscars, listeners, go see David in Late Night
Speaker 3: with the Devil. I can't wait to see it. It comes
Speaker 3: out this week, and then come back here next Tuesday
Speaker 3: for more of Me and Off the Beat. Until then,
Speaker 3: have a great week. Off the Beat is hosted and
Speaker 3: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer,
Speaker 3: lingg Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers
Speaker 3: are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent
Speaker 3: producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is Ali
Speaker 3: Amir Sahi. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by
Speaker 3: the one and only Creed Bradon